Friday, December 31, 2010

Monday, December 27, 2010

Christmas season brought us a play date with the son and daughter of a childhood friend of mine, Sarah. Well, it was more a play date between Adaline and Jack, not so much Reese. She's much older than the babies, and had her own toys to play with :)

Adaline spent most of the time chewing on the toys, and Jack spent most of the time trying to show Adaline how to crawl.

Jack is such a happy boy!

This is how it works, Adaline. First you lift yourself up...

Then you pull yourself forward like this.

See how it makes you go forward?

Jack has the best clothes.

Seems like he liked Adaline's socks, too.

I think Jack is going to be a strapping young man, tall like his parents. He's 3 months younger than Adaline and almost the same size!

Miss Reese was as beautiful as ever. Such a smart three-year-old!

It was great seeing the family, and we look forward to the next visit!

After we had our private Christmas with Adaline, we joined the other 50 or so members of my family for breakfast in Hilmar. My grandparents, their 5 kids (my dad being the oldest), their 10 children AND all their families (of which we added Adaline as the youngest member!) It's always warm, busy, loud and filled with love and laughter. We had a great time showing off Adaline to all the family that had yet to meet her in person (facebook just doesn't count), but it was really overwhelming for Adaline. She's a slow-to-warm up baby and she did not want both Travis and me out of her sight at once. We spend as long as we could there, and left right before a meltdown.

Julie (the next youngest great-grandchild) and Adaline.

It looks like Adaline is hugging her, but I think she was really pushing her away!

We raced home, packed up the car as fast as we could and headed back up the hill to have Christmas night with Travis's family. Adaline only slept 30 minutes in the car and was pretty groggy and cranky, but she did her best to stick it out with us. She seemed to really like opening her gifts and playing with her new toys and stuffed animals.

Look, I really was there!

Adaline's first Christmas dress (thanks Cousin Laura!)

We had a rough night (not surprising after all the exciting events) but woke up to snow on Sunday. Well, Adaline woke up to snow, we were still up when the rain turned silent and everything turned white :) We took her out to see it, but didn't play in it yet. We came home and spent the rest of the day resting and putting away our Christmas decorations.

A busy couple of days, but really fun! Hope you all had an enjoyable holiday, too!

We spent December 23 getting ready for Christmas and baking a little bit. Mid-afternoon we headed up the hill to Sonora for Travis's mom's birthday dinner. Sara picked a fantastic restaurant, Diamondback's, and we had tough decisions for our entrees. Travis picked the skirt steak with a blue cheese/horseradish sauce and shoe string sweet potato fries (my favorite!) I picked the Alaskan Salmon patty served on an english muffin, topped with wasabi dressing. It was soooo good. I ate somewhat quickly and didn't get to really savor my food (we were eating with a baby), but what I tasted, I like! It was Adaline's first dinner in a restaurant and she did fine for being up past her bedtime and being overstimulated with sights, sounds and smells. I didn't take my camera so I have no pictures to post, but the restaurant was really cool. I'm looking forward to our next visit to Diamondback's so we can take a little more time and fully enjoy ourselves.
Happy birthday, Linda and Grandpa Hank!

You want to know how hard it is to get three kids to smile at the same time?

Almost as hard as getting three kids and two adults to smile at the same time.

It is so fun to see Christmas through the eyes of little children. My niece and nephew were so excited to see the tree full of presents that is was reallllly hard to wait until after dinner to open them.

We had our first Christmas morning as a family and it was fantastic!

Adaline was ready to go:

She loves her bath time rubber ducky so "Santa" knew this would be a hit...and it was ;)

Lots of new books AND a pair of shoes:

I received my first Christmas gift, too (as a mommy):

Then Adaline helped Daddy open his gifts:

Tanner was feeling a little left out, so he inched his way onto Trav's lap for a hug:

More of Christmas Day, later...Baby just woke up so my blogging time has ended.